For India, Worries of Another 1989 Moment in the Region

For India, Worries of Another 1989 Moment in the Region

Article excerpt

As NATO troops solve the logistical challenges of a draw-down
from Afghanistan, there is a sense of deja vu among foreign
policymakers in New Delhi. When the Soviet troops left Afghanistan
in 1989, and US attention turned elsewhere, Pakistan used the
militant infrastructure of the war to support a popular militant
uprising in Indian-administered Kashmir while the Afghan mujahideen
finished off the communists in Kabul.

Both India and Afghanistan are keen to avoid a replay of that
history.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai wrapped up a trip to New Delhi
yesterday in which he went public with a request for military
weapons and equipment. The demand is difficult for India to meet,
given that it could further Pakistan's fears of an India-allied
Afghanistan.

And yet, in India the anxiety over the Afghan National Army's
ability to brave the Taliban after 2014 is as much New Delhi's as
Kabul's. India's worry is that if Kabul loses ground easily to the
Taliban, Pakistan may be tempted to shift assets east to Kashmir
once again.

"It is a matter of primary concern for us that Afghanistan should
not return to a pre-2001 kind of situation when its territory was
misused against not just India and America but many others too,"
says a senior Indian government official.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Pakistan again faced heavy
fighting on its western border, and Islambad agreed to a cease-fire
with India on Kashmir, and militancy since declined to negligible
levels. But the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which India blamed on the
Kashmir-focused Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, was a
reminder that peace on the Line of Control that divides the disputed
Kashmir region may only be temporary.

"I think at some point they will return their attention to
Kashmir," said Vikram Sood, former chief of India's external
intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing. "They have not
ratcheted down their militant infrastructure for Kashmir and can use
it at will."

Graffiti saying "Welcome Taliban" appeared recently in the Hari
Parbat fort at the center of Srinagar, capital of the Muslim-
majority Kashmir Valley. …